ALMOST 100 teenagers from Northern Ireland travelled to Britain for an abortion last year, including nine who were aged under 16.
New statistics reveal that a total of 833 women from the north went to England to have a termination in 2015.
Figures from the Department of Health for England and Wales also show that 18 per cent of those women had at least one previous abortion.
The statistics also reveal that 18 terminations were carried out on women of 20 gestation weeks or more.
Abortion in Northern Ireland is illegal except under the strictest circumstances.
Currently, termination of pregnancy is only allowed if a woman's life is at risk or there is a permanent or serious risk to her mental or physical health.
The figures reveal the vast majority of the women who travelled to Britain for an abortion were aged between 20-39, with 55 over the age of 40.
There were 64 women aged between 18 and 19, 26 women between 16-17 and nine women under 16.
The statistics also show that 44 of the women were married or in a civil partnership while 354 referred to themselves as 'single with a partner' and 244 were single.
There were 3,451 women who travelled from the Republic to Britain for an abortion, including 263 teenagers - 18 of which were aged under 16.
The majority of these women travelled from Co Dublin to have an abortion (1,311), followed by Co Cork (280) and Co Galway (156).
There were 184,571 abortions in total carried out in England and Wales in 2015 - an increase of just 0.7 per cent compared with the previous year.
Patrick Corrigan from Amnesty International said the north's abortion law "needs to be brought out of the 19th century and into the 21st".
"Abortion not being lawful doesn’t mean that Northern Ireland women don’t have abortions," he said.
"It means that they either seek those services elsewhere or risk prosecution under Northern Ireland’s archaic laws by ordering abortion pills over the internet.
"833 women have been forced to make that lonely journey in 2015.
"It was a similar number in 2014 and will likely be the same again this year.
"The Northern Ireland government clearly does not mind women having abortions just as long as they’re not happening here. 'Out of sight, out of mind' is not a viable health policy in 2016."
